his life. Already I had spanned half the
globe retracing his incredible travels; there
remained now only this final leg, across
Niger in Saharan Africa. Thus would he and
I complete a traverse of the diverse cultures
linked by a common faith, in the powerful
realm of medieval Islam.
In my own three decades in the Middle
East I had often crossed the tracks of this
pilgrim-jurist-courtier-mystic-politician
diplomat-explorer. Little celebrated in the
West save in scholarly footnotes, his achieve
ments are familiar among Arabs. In 29 years
of relentless roaming, Ibn Battuta crossed
two continents, logging some 75,000 miles
(tripling Marco Polo's travels) through 44
countries in today's atlas.
His memoirs brim with the flavor of his
time, documenting a journey of hazard and
hardship, opulence and adventure. It began
in Morocco, when he was only 21.
S LEFT TANGIER, my birthplace, the
13th of June 1325 with the intention
of making the Pilgrimage to [Mecca].
...
to leave all my friends both
female and male, to abandon my home as
birds abandon their nests." So begins his
brittle Arabic manuscript, in the Biblio
theque Nationale in Paris, the 630-year-old
narrative of Sheikh Abu Abdallah Muham
mad ibn Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibra
him al-Lawati, also called Ibn Battuta.
Clearly he is famous in his own hometown.
NationalGeographic, December 1991